James Rubenstein, M.D.

James Rubenstein, M.D., is a neurodevelopmental pediatrician on the full-time staff at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is a clinician working primarily in the fields of epilepsy, autism, cerebral palsy and other complications of birth injury. His main role and goal is to provide comprehensive care and follow up for children with developmental disabilities utilizing the latest techniques in clinical evaluation and laboratory investigation/technology.

Biographical Sketch:

Dr. Rubenstein graduated from Union College (NY) in 1968 and New York University School of Medicine in 1972, and completed his pediatric residency and training in neurodevelopmental pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Kennedy Krieger Institute in 1976. He is an assistant professor of neurology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Child Neurology Society.

Research Summary:

Combining his clinical interests as an autism specialist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) and an epilepsy specialist at Johns Hopkins, where is part of the dietary management team treating children with intractable epilepsy, Dr. Rubenstein's clinical research centers on the use of the ketogenic diet as first line therapy in the treatment of the catastrophic epilepsies of infancy. He is also part of a team that is proposing to evaluate the use of the ketogenic diet in children with autism to treat their epilepsy and their behavioral problems. Finally, he is part of a team that is proposing to evaluate sleep disorders and epilepsy in children with autism.